Two independent film-makers are appealing for help to complete and distribute a feature-length documentary film charting the journey of Bristol mayor Marvin Rees.

The film, which is set to be called ‘Mayor’s Race’, has been made already, and is currently in post-production.

It will be an 80-minute story charting Mr Rees’ childhood, his failed attempt to win the mayoral election in Bristol in 2012 and climaxing with the victory at last May’s contest.

The film is already causing something of a buzz in European film circles, and has been made by a Berlin-based film-maker working alongside a Bristolian.

Loraine Blumental and Rob Mitchell have begun a crowdfunding appeal to fund the final work on the movie, and to get it into film festivals, to distributors and, ultimately, to cinemas and on television.

People who contribute to the fundraising campaign get ‘rewards’, on a sliding scale, with one of the rewards, for donating 500 Euros, will be the chance to have a half-hour Skype conversation with the Mayor himself.

The pair got together initially to discuss making a film about the Bristol bus boycott, but realised there was a contemporary story that followed on from that forming in 2011, as Marvin began trying to be chosen to be Labour’s candidate in the mayoral election of 2012.

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Mr Mitchell said he thinks people in Bristol perhaps underestimate how powerful Marvin’s story is outside of Bristol.

“What’s interesting with something like the Bus Boycott is that, in America, they have this kind of history and it’s huge, but here, no one outside of Bristol really knows about it, and it’s not really seen as important,” he said.

“We started this very much with the thread that, in the city which had this bus boycott, now a generation later, a mixed race man can stand for mayor,” he added.

Screenshot from The Mayor's Race, a film about Marvin Rees.

“It’s as much a story about Bristol and how ready Bristol was for a black man to stand for mayor in 2012. In the end, he didn’t win, but that was because of political reasons. We continued to follow him, and when he stood again in 2016, we were back filming,” he added.

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Mr Mitchell said Marvin has been ‘amazingly accommodating, really generous’, as has his family.

“Marvin quite likes to tell his story, he’s very media-friendly, and he likes the idea of demystifying his story. In the film, you see him grow, and as a character he cuts quite an impressive figure, regardless of his politics, he comes across well on screen,” he said.

“He makes himself quite vulnerable in this film, but he’s been very trusting of us as he hasn’t seen the film yet at all,” he added.

Ms Blumenthal said Marvin’s story was interesting to people across Europe and the US – something that is perhaps under-appreciated in Bristol itself, where now people are more concerned with ‘what Marvin’s doing about council cuts and roadworks’.

“When we started pitching the idea of the film around Europe, at pitching sessions everyone has been very encouraging,” she said. “People in Europe and in America get very excited about it, but in England less so.”

Screenshot from The Mayor's Race, a film about Marvin Rees.

“People in Bristol, and maybe in Britain, are literally saying: ‘I don’t care what colour he is, can he do the job?’” added Mr Mitchell. “It’s important to stress to everyone in Bristol that the race question is not something that Marvin, and the film itself, is all about. His story is as much, if not more, about the poverty, the class thing. He definitely does not want to be ‘the black guy’, and the film is about whether someone from his background of poverty could stand, and even win, an election to be mayor.”

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In the snippets of the movie in the film-makers’ fundraising video, Marvin almost compares himself to Martin Luther King – albeit in a section where he says he shares King’s doubts over whether he was able to continue.

Mr Mitchell said that in the first part of the movie – the election campaign in 2012 – there were obvious comparisons with Barack Obama’s bid for re-election, which was happening at the same time.

“There’s a bit in the movie where he says that he doesn’t want to make a comparison with Obama, but given they are both running for election at the same time, there is a comparison to be made. Just him standing means something, it’s an achievement in itself,” added Mr Mitchell.

Jeremy Corbyn and Marvin Rees visit the Greenway Centre in Southmead to support Lesley Mansell in the Metro Mayor election. (Image: Dan Regan)

“Our job as filmmakers is to tell the story of why it is significant,” added Ms Blumenthal. “For me, as an outsider to Bristol, there’s a big point of somebody attempting something against all the odds, and that is the story that is going down well among the distributors and the people we’ve been talking to.”

The film-makers have got the backing of the European Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, a fund trying to spread the values of equality through education

One of the rewards in the ‘indiegogo’ fundraising page will see someone donating 500 Euros and being given a Skype call with Marvin himself.

“It’s a really tricky one, that,” admitted Mr Mitchell. “Obviously, there’s a thing that anyone in Bristol can hopefully get to talk to Marvin for free, so that little reward is not really designed for people in Bristol. No Bristolian ever should have to pay for access to their elected representatives.

“How I envisage that reward is that it be used as something of a teaching aid, I imagine someone hopefully paying that to have Marvin speak to some students in Europe, or at a conference or something, not for people in Bristol to pay for a chance to moan at him about roadworks,” he added.

Jeremy Corbyn and Marvin Rees visit the Greenway Centre in Southmead to support Lesley Mansell in the Metro Mayor election. (Image: Dan Regan)

The next task for the film-makers, who have set themselves the target of raising £15,000 in a month, is to put the film through post-production, with much of the money paying for the rights to use archive footage of things like the bus boycott.

Then there is the job of selling the film around film festivals this year, with the hope of a premiere at a cinema later this year in Bristol, a wider release next year and, eventually, a screening on TV later next year.

“We hope Bristol gets behind this, because it is a story about the desire to overcome doubt, and the boundaries between social background and power,” added Mr Mitchell.